Teen Loses Both Legs Hopping Train Cars

Limbs severed below knees

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A 17-year-old student's legs were severed at the knees when she fell under a freight train while trying to hop aboard.

Updated at 7:09 AM EDT on Tuesday, Sep 6, 2011

A Colorado college student lost both her lower legs when she tried to hop aboard a moving frieght train and fell on the tracks beneath it.

The 17-year-old Fort Collins girl, who was not identified, was saved by a nurse who happened to be nearby and applied tourniquets to both legs, according to the Longmont Times Call.

"It was pretty gruesome," Brian Ellwanger, who witnessed the accident and whose wife called 911, told the newspaper. "Thank God the nurse was there. Otherwise, we were using scarves as tourniquets. It wasn't working too well."

The girl, a student at Colorado State University, was with three men when they decided to hop onto the moving train. One of the others, a 17-year-old, tried to jump on and was dragged for a short distance before falling safely to the wayside, said Longmont Police Detective Cmdr. Jeff Satur. The third man pulled the injured woman to safety and did not try to hop the train, Satur told the newspaper.

The girl "kept telling me her parents were going to be pissed at her," Ellwanger said. Police were trying to reach her parents, who live in Utah.